Just Like You
by Hidge
Summary: Oneshot set after 4x17 - "Demonology". What could have happened if Prentiss had carried her baby to term but decided to give her up for adoption. 23 years later, her daughter is determined to get some answers. Please R&R!


**A/N: So here's a little idea that came to mind after I watched "Demonology" on DVD. Basically, its a 'what could have been' type story. I hope you enjoy! :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or any of its characters.**

"Abby, I don't get it," Darryl stated quietly as he sat up in bed and watched his fiancé fret.

"What's not to get Darryl? I want to know who my birth parents are," she replied, annoyed by his reaction.

"But why now?" He asked in confusion. Abby hardly ever brought up the fact that she was adopted.

"Because we're getting married in three months and I don't know where I come from! God Darryl, didn't you see _Mamma Mia_," she added with a grin.

He chuckled softly. She had such a good sense of humour, even when she was angry. "But I thought that you…" he didn't want to say it, but he couldn't come up with another phrase, "…were over it."

Abby sighed as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "I love Mom and Dad, Margaret and Peter, and they raised me and they're my parents, but I'm an adult now. I'm 23 and I'm over that whole 'you gave me away, you didn't want me and you didn't love me' thing. I want to know which one of my birth parents I look like. I want to know why I was able to get straight A's my sophomore year without opening a single textbook. I want to know why I'm double jointed in my hands. It's all genetics! I'm curious!" She crawled towards Darryl and curled up in his lap. "I wanna meet them," she whispered.

"Okay, I understand," he assured her as he soothingly rubbed her back.

She kissed his neck lovingly. "Thank you."

"Is there anything that I can do to help?"

"No, we just have to wait. I asked Josh to look into some things and now I'm waiting for him to mail me whatever he could find." Josh Carson was one of her close friends from high school who just so happened to be a private investigator. "When I called the adoption agency that Mom and Dad told me they had used, the woman that I spoke with just said that she vividly remembers a young girl, no more than sixteen, coming to her in the summer of eighty-six, but she didn't have any names or anything," Abby answered sadly.

"Okay, let's get in bed and go to sleep and I'll check the mail first thing in the morning," Darryl proposed sweetly.

"Okay," she agreed. She was marrying such a wonderful man.

The young couple got in bed and Darryl fell asleep fairly quickly with his arms wrapped protectively around Abby, but she was not asleep. She had too many things on her mind.

Abigail Elizabeth Potter had been adopted when she was only an infant in Paris, France by Margaret and Peter Potter. Peter had been working in France for the American government at the time and he and his wife had been trying for years to conceive a child. When they finally turned to an alternate route to obtain a child, they made a call to a Parisian adoption agency. They could not wait until they got back in the United States to get the child that they had been longing for.

The Potters had moved back to the U.S. before Abby had reached the age of three so she had been raised in South Carolina, the home state of both of her parents. She had had the childhood that anyone would have asked for. She had been happy and healthy living with amazing parents in a safe, gorgeous town.

Her parents had told her that she was adopted at the age of seventeen. She hadn't been disappointed, Margaret and Peter had raised her, and they were her parents regardless. She hadn't been shocked either. She had always had a feeling that something was off. She was nothing like either of her parents. She had dark hair and deep, dark eyes while both of her parents were blonde with very light eyes. She was very tall for her age and gender and both of her parents were below the average height for an adult male and female. There were also always little behavioural things that she picked up on that made her feel different. Both of her parents loved the outdoors while she was content to stay at home and read. But she had been raised as a Potter and according to her Dad that meant that she was born to play soccer. So she played and it had earned her an athletic scholarship to Duke University, not that she needed it with her outstanding grades.

She met Darryl her freshmen year of university and they had been together ever since. They had made the move to Washington D.C. together and that's where she was now. She was a 23-year-old, engaged, Georgetown University law student who was trying to find her birth parents.

She finally fell asleep and was awakened in the morning by her fiancé's voice. "Baby, you have mail."

She quickly sat up in the bed and opened her eyes. Darryl was standing in front of her holding a manila envelope. She swallowed nervously. Did she really want to do this? She thought about it for a very brief moment. The answer was an overwhelming yes.

"Are you sure?" Darryl asked softly.

Abby nodded. "Yeah, I am."

Darryl passed her the envelope and sat down next to her on the bed. He would be there to support her. Abby opened it very slowly and pulled out a small stack of papers. Her eyes roamed over the pages without a single reaction and it made Darryl very nervous. "What does it say?"

"It says that my parents are John Cooley and Emily Prentiss, and they both live right here in D.C."

He began to gently massage her shoulders. "What else does it say?" He asked curiously.

"Umm, it has their addresses," she answered softly. "John Cooley is a photographer."

"That's cool."

"But I'm not artistic," she chuckled. "He travels the world," she stated as she read through the personal information that Josh had complied. "And Emily Prentiss," she used their names, hesitant to use the terms mother and father, "works for the FBI."

"Wow," Darryl whistled. "That's pretty impressive. It must be where you get your brains."

"I want to meet them," she stated determined.

"Now?" He asked startled.

"Well, as soon as possible," Abby answered.

"Are they married?"

Abby shook her head. "They live in different parts of the city, but it says that John Cooley is currently out of the country." She hopped out of bed and began to pull clean clothes out of her closet.

"Wait, you're going right now?" Darryl was slightly surprised that she was in such a rush. He figured that she would be nervous and apprehensive and it would take her a couple of days to talk herself into meeting her birth parents.

"I've waited twenty-three years."

She dressed, brushed her teeth, and kissed Darryl before leaving. She had to drive to FBI Behavioural Analysis Headquarters in Quantico, Virginia in order to meet Emily Prentiss.

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Abby stepped out of the elevator and onto the sixth floor of Behavioural Analysis Headquarters. She had never been more nervous in her entire life. How was she supposed to walk up to this woman and announce that they were mother and daughter? The idea sounded absurd.

She was about to pull open the glass door to enter the bullpen when her attention was drawn to her peripheral vision. She turned her head to see a woman emerging from an office. She was tall and curvy. She was not thin but she wasn't big either, she had a well-proportioned figure. Her hair was dark, practically black, and fell past her shoulders. Her skin was very fair, and she had high cheekbones, dark eyes, and a slightly hooked nose. She was dressed in grey slacks and a matching long-sleeved top. The woman in question carried herself with a tremendous amount of poise. She looked intelligent, ambitious, and brave yet also kind and considerate.

Abby felt something shift inside of her. It was an indescribable feeling, an almost out of body experience. Her mind and her heart were screaming at her. That woman was her mother, no questions.

A pretty blonde popped out of the office. "Emily, don't forget to remind Morgan that he owes you a coffee!"

_Emily_?! That was her mother's name!

Emily chuckled in response and it was a carefree sound. "Don't worry, I won't."

Abby quickly stepped back towards the elevator so that she wasn't blocking the entrance, and also so she wouldn't be easily spotted. Emily walked towards the glass doors and disappeared into the busy office space.

She took a deep breath. "I can't do this," Abby muttered to herself. She had been so determined and resolved before but she had ended up taking a forty-five minute drive to chicken out at the last minute.

But she had gotten to see her. And one of her questions had been answered. She looked just like her mother.

**A/N: Review and give me your thoughts! :)**


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